Smartphone data collection

Sociologist Kimberly Tyler studies dating violence and substance misuse among college students and youth experiencing homelessness. She has published multiple research articles examining how dating violence and campus sexual assault are influenced by mental health, racial or ethnic background, substance misuse and sorority membership, among other factors. Other topics of interest include child abuse and neglect and HIV risk behaviors. In August 2022, she and her team were awarded a five-year grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to study risk factors and coping behaviors among youth experiencing homelessness and create a “just-in-time” personal support intervention tool using a mobile phone app. Tyler is the George Holmes University Professor of Sociology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and serves as the co-director of the Longitudinal Networks Core for UNL’s Rural Drug Addiction Research Center. She teaches upper-level courses on families and family violence. (Updated January 2025.)